A Spurgeon Snapshot
…testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 20:21, KJV
One of my favorite study Bibles is The Spurgeon Study Bible, available from Lifeway, Christianbook.com, and Amazon. All of the study notes are quotes from Charles Spurgeon’s sermons and writing. For more on Charles Spurgeon, click here.
Through the Bible: Acts 20-20-23
As it has so many times during this year, Charles Spurgeon’s insight into Scripture floored me in today’s reading. Spurgeon took one word from one verse and preached an incredible sermon about true repentance.
The word is toward. I chose the King James Version because it is one of the few English version that uses “toward” twice: repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus.
This begs the question, “So does that mean there is repentance that is not toward God? Is there faith the is not toward Jesus? Spurgeon says yes, and that difference could make the difference of where someone spends eternity. Listen to Spurgeon:
There is a repentance that is fatally faulty because it is not toward God. In some there is a repentance that is produced by a sense of shame…
They are ashamed and they are repentant because they have dishonored themselves. If they had not been found out, they would have continued comfortable in the sin. Their shame is not evangelical repentance, and a person may go to hell with a blush on his face.
Spurgeon Study Bible, note on Acts 20:21
Spurgeon goes on to give two more examples of repentance that is not toward God. There is consequential repentance– people who are sorry for their sin because they are bearing the physical, emotional, or financial consequences of their sin. Then there is “a repentance that consists entirely of horror at the future punishment of sin,” Now, at first glance that looks like repentance toward God. But it isn’t. It’s just repentance away from punishment. Spurgeon wrote,
If such persons could be assured that no punishment would follow, rhey would continue in sin and not only be content to live in it but delighted to have it so. If we have no repentance for the sin itself, it is in vain that we should stand and tremble because of the judgment to come.
Ibid.
While Spurgeon kept his focus on repentance, the same is true for the second part of the verse–faith toward Christ. Faith is only as secure as that in which you place your faith. You can have faith that “things will work out… they always do.” You can have Disney Princess faith– the faith that “all you have to do is believe in yourself.” Even faith in God’s love falls short, because it can lead one to the idea that since God loves me and I know He will forgive me, what I do doesn’t really matter. All these are examples of faith, but not toward Christ.
So what is “Evangelical Repentance”?
I can’t improve on how Spurgeon worded this, so please forgive the lengthy quote:
Evangelical repentance is “repentance toward God.” It is repentance from sin as sin— not of this sin, or of that, but of the whole mess. We repent of the sin of our nature as well as the sin of our practice. We repent of sin as an insult to God. Anything short of this is a mere surface repentance and not a repentance that reaches to the bottom of the problem.
Charles Spurgeon compared repentance of the evil act but not the evil heart to bailing the water out of the boat but not stopping the leak. Eventually, you are still going to sink.
These words merit careful reflection. Is your repentance toward God, or is it away from shame, or consequences, or eternal punishment?
Is your faith toward Christ, or is it toward yourself, or karma, or the kindness of God that doesn’t lead to repentance (Romans 2:4)? Is it just faith in faith?
That one little preposition–toward–makes an eternity of difference.
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